Archive for January, 2009
Welcome to 2009. A big HAPPY NEW YEAR and a warm welcome back to readers of my blog.
Well last year was certainly a very interesting year with the pain of very high interest rates touching 11% on floating rates, before the OCR was dropped in July 2008, and then the banks finally passed on these rate reductions to us 6 weeks or so later, and the Reserve Bank dropped the rates further. The collapse of Lehman Brothers led to a crisis of confidence in lending between huge financial institutions and countries even. The once mighty stock exchange indexes like the Dow Jones, NASDAQ, FTSE-100, as well as the ASX and NZX all took an absolute hammering from September last year to now, and the rock to recovery looks a long way away yet.
In New Zealand the OCR has been cut massively and there will simply have to be further cuts to prevent a catastrophic amount of loan defaults, and to restore normality eventually. Sadly unemployment will continue to rise, and the the New Zealand Dollar will probably rise to reach close to 1NZD : 0.50GBP and 1NZD : 0.80USD later this year, such are the precarious states of those two once great economies, that have been fueled by debt.
Welcome to a new addition to my family – Baby Liam
I had largely gone off the radar up until now, and that is because I now have a 2 month old baby boy (Liam). November 2008 was an interesting time with my wife having an emergency caesarian operation, after Liam got stuck. So after a fair few solo baby baths (since Bridget was unable to lift Liam for a few weeks), nappy changes and lots of broken sleeps with regular crying every 2 – 3 hours or so, I have been in a state of permanent tiredness! Fortunately I still have time to follow my passion and my hobby of property investment, and it is great having both sets of grandparents within 10 minute drive of our house, and numerous other family also in Auckland.
Here is my wife holding Liam (aged 6 weeks old) in our living room. Look how tiny and cute his little toes are!